Noones
The Bitcoin Super App
A peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace & messenger built to unlock liquidity trapped in underbanked communities across the Global South. 3 million daily active users. 500+ payment methods
The world's Bitcoin messenger and marketplace.
We designed and developed a unique peer-to-peer marketplace for Noones, an app built to unlock the vast pockets of liquidity and wealth trapped within underbanked communities across the Global South.
From M-PESA, to gift cards, to bank transfer. Noones is the Swiss army knife of payments, allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to connect, transact, and exchange value via 500+ payment methods that use Bitcoin as their clearing layer.
We created a 0→1 and continued to scale the mobile app, web-app, website, brand, and go-to-market strategy with a taskforce of designers and full-stack developers from our FINH HQ.
The Brand
We developed an identity focused on Noones' beachhead market, the youth of Nigeria, blending aspects of 8-bit gaming, Afro-futurism, and the vibrant colours of Nigeria's national identity.
The name Noones (or No ones), pronounced however you wish, was deliberately chosen to imbue the app with a declarative, rebellious tone the underdog youth of Nigeria could rally behind, giving them a sense of belonging within a grass-roots movement.
The Product
The design process took us deep into the heart of the streets, striving to capture the nuances of true peer-to-peer trading dynamics amongst the youth of the Global South.
An iterative, fast-paced process that allowed us to break down an inherently complex trading mechanic into a simple, joyful, and playful experience.
Growth
We worked with the Noones leadership team to strategise, staff, and implement a boots-on-the-ground growth campaign, mobilising an army of youth ambassadors across African cities.
Noones grew to 3 million daily users across the Global South.
The results speak for themselves:
- $120M+ in monthly trading volumes
- 50,000+ daily trades
- Launch to 3 million daily active users
A peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace & messenger built to unlock liquidity trapped in underbanked communities across the Global South. 3 million daily active users. 500+ payment methods
THE CHALLENGE
Noones' founding team came to us for the brand and the product: a visual direction for a new venture, and the zero-to-one build to launch it into the Global South. The challenge was making the complex simple. Buying crypto, trading and messaging across 500+ payment methods had to feel fun and gamified, not like a trading terminal. And it had to stay highly functional while we built in referral, game mechanics and touchpoints across the whole journey, inside one super app that read as one thing across brand, website and product.
THE OUTCOME
I led product: the design system from scratch, the end-to-end experience across mobile and web, and the design team and engineers, working directly with the founders on strategy and roadmap. An MVP scope became a two-year collaboration. We shipped the first brand, website and app, then kept iterating once it was in market, to 3 million daily active users. After reaching wide adoption, the product was shut down when the core team didn't continue, but it was in market and working, with millions in transactions and users.
- Client
- Noones
- Year
- 2023
- Sector
- Fin-Tech, Crypto, P2P, Gamification
- Agency
- FINH
- Type
- Digital
- Role
- Lead Product Designer
- Outcome
- Mobile & Web-App, UX/UI, Branding